IC HK.
Agreements with 8 principal supplying countries
We propose
6.
that the Community consider carefully, on a multifibre basis and on the assumption that a single Community market for imports from these sources is going to be created within a few years, what the product coverage of a new agreement should be in each case. For those supplying countries whose exports of non-cotton textiles are potentially disruptive, and are subject to restraints of varying kinds in some or all of the Hember States, it may be desirable to establish a wide product coverage. For other suppliers, the problem may be confined to cottons. In certain cases, the product coverage for restraints that are justificable and necessary may not be identical for all Member States, and it may therefore be necessary to provide for exceptions whereby particular products are restrained, during a transitional period, in some Member States but not in others; it is to be hoped that such cases can be kept to a very small number. Once the product coverage is agreed, the mandate for negotiation with the supplying country should be based on Community totals, base periods and growth rates. The agreements should be of sufficient duration to allow the internal sub-limits for Member States' imports to be progressively eliminated, or at least relegated to the status of back-stop safeguards against concentration, before the agreements cxpire. The annexed notes and tables suggest ways in which this progress might be achieved.
7. We have chosen three examples India, Yugoslavia and Taiwan; these are relatively simple in that only cotton textiles are so far involved. The progression from existing national ceilings to national sub-limits based on members state's "economic share" of the total, will represent very great increases in certain cases, but in other cases the national ceiling is already greater than the appropriate "economic share" of the total. In such cases no decreases are proposed, even on a transitional basis, since the arrangement is not intended to reduce the quantity of cotton textiles traditionally available to those users. There is to be no forced redistribution of imports. But by limiting the annual growth of the Community quota itself, and by raising the national sub-limits in stages over several years, it should
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